We had a huge, baby blue 1950's Buick with a continental kit.
We drove that car from Edgemont, CA to Boston, MA (where we stayed with my aunt a day or two) and then, with Aunt Helen along, took the Bluenose Ferry over the ocean to Nova Scotia, Canada for my mother to visit her family there. It would be the first time they all met my father.
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| Bluenose Ferry |
It would be the first time we would all see snow.
I can remember a row of little girls shoes lined up on the open door of an oven, cooking the wet out of them.
But the family wanted to see us all perform and we were more than willing to soak in the applause.
The entire trip, people would get a kick out of three little girls all dressed alike. We were referred to as "twins and a half" by one observer.
If my mother bought one, she bought three. If she made us an outfit, she made three. Sometimes they would be different colors, but always the same print. And then we would proceed to hand down the dresses or tops or pants. She would start out making them too big for us, so we could grow into them. Then she would take in my older sister's outfits to fit me and then let them out again for my younger sister. (I was a "bag of bones" in those days). Poor little sister, she saw the same outfits forever.
Everyone thought it was wonderful that we had all these great, homemade outfits. I think it had additional impact because there were three in a row lined up on different "models". It was kind of our trademark. Today it would be referred to as a branding element.
She, Mom, would later let us each pick out fabrics or colors we wanted, but she would still create the outfits for us.
In our younger years it was a major event to get something store bought and boy did we look forward to those times.
The shirts we are wearing in this picture were red, white and blue. Mom bought them for us. She just loved them because, "the white stays white, white and the fabric never looses its shape". I remember her bragging about how she loved the White Stag label items. She probably found them, then, at the March Air Force Base Exchange. We endearingly called it the BX or from her long association with base life, the PX, Post Exchange. In those days, military personnel and their families were treated to very good quality items at deep discounts compared to regular department store prices. We thoroughly enjoyed that privilege.
That statement stuck with me for years. I remember when I first saw the label again as an adult at Wally World. I was initially excited. It was nostalgic. My mother was gone by then, but I could hear her words, "the white stays white, white and the fabric never looses its shape".
I gravitated right to the racks and started looking for what I could buy that was White Stag? The further along I got into inspecting the items, I would realize that they weren't the same quality.
Something was wrong.
I was already aware of the Wal-Mart history of forcing brands to compromise to meet their cost demands, but I didn't know what had actually happened to the White Stag label.
As it turns out, the original brand would be sold, resold and eventually fall victim to a hostile takeover, later to fall into bankruptcy. Wal-Mart would eventually buy the trademark in 2003 and put it on a brand of women's casual clothing, footwear, and basic jewelry.
It is not, I say, "It is not the same thing as when my mother said, 'the white stays white, white and the fabric never looses its shape' ".
How this ties into "Tipping Green" is that Wal-Mart, after the death of Sam Walton, changed its policy to meet the demands of competition that is the reality of any corporation. To continue to "grow", they had to become ever more and more profitable. They at least had to show as though they were profitable.
Because of their highly sophisticated technology, loading the floor with high profit items looks good on their quarterly earnings report. Even though it might not have been sold, according to the way they kept their records, it showed up as profit.
Sam Walton had a long history of supporting the USA. But after he died, other leaders put into action policies that would force even the manufacturers in the USA to have to go off shore to stay in business.
These practices aren't sustainable. They are nowhere near "Tipping Green". CEO Lee Scott has been quoted as having said, "Well, it's just the way it's got to be. This is a global economy now. We've got to do business with China. We have no other choice."
Selling more, doing more with less is their Modus operandi.
I don't think so.
Personally, I do not shop at Wal-Mart. If I have to buy it there, I don't need it.
There, I spoke my one truth for the day...
"In Twelve Steps to Political Revelation, Mosley outlines a guide to recovery from oppression. First we must identify the problems that surround us. Next we must actively work together to create a just, more holistic society. And finally, power must be returned to the embrace of the people.
Challenging and original, Recovery confronts both self-understanding and how we define ourselves in relation to others."
